


When the Blazing Sun is Gone.

by orphan_account



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, American AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-26
Updated: 2012-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-04 08:36:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is a dreary cycle of work and sleep until Arthur moves in next door and breaks Merlin’s stride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Blazing Sun is Gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my wonderful beta rebeccaann08, and planejane for the ‘research’ *g*.
> 
> This is written for the glomp_fest, wordgasmic, I know I didn't add all the aspects of your prompt but I really hope you like this. Thank you for the prompt! ♥

  


From his spot on the porch-railing, Merlin sees the move-in truck pull into the drive beside his house. The day is bright and hot, sweat pooling and stinging in the nape of his neck, and he doesn’t envy the men carrying couch after table after bed up the steps. He shifts, stretching his legs out in front of him, knowing they’ll be no more tanned by the end of summer than they were at the beginning of it, but he doesn’t care. Not really.

A vague thought as to who’ll move in this time flits through his mind, but it’s gone as soon as it’s formed. No one interesting lives in this backward hole of a town and Merlin doesn’t see that changing anytime soon. He sighs, unsticks himself from the baluster supporting his weight and goes inside in search of a non-existing breeze that wouldn’t cool him down anyway.

When he wakes up the next morning, his sheets stick to him like a second skin, and his palms are slick with sweat when he pushes the hair out of his eyes. His alarm clock says it’s barely seven AM and already the heat is balancing the edge of sultry. It will tip over into unbearable before the sun has reached its zenith and Merlin carefully doesn’t think about the air-conditioned pharmacy he could’ve been working in, rather than the pancake house and its torrid kitchen that waits for him to open, has been now for more than six years.

If only things were different, but isn’t that the story of life itself?

It takes exactly thirty seconds after his cold shower to start sweating again. Merlin pulls on his jeans and black t-shirt anyway, pushing a hand through his near-dry hair before running downstairs. He’s late and if he doesn’t open the shop in time, Gus and Geoff will have his hide. He steps into his flip-flops and when he opens his door, humid heat is not the only thing that knocks the breath out of him. For a moment Merlin feels devastated, his hand a vice around his doorknob, the only thing grounding him.

“Oh hi, sorry. I didn’t mean to just creep up your porch like that, but my dog is in your chair.”

“What?” Merlin says dumbly, blinking away a trickle of sweat. It doesn’t help. The boy still looks like a hallucination materialized from all Merlin’s sins.

“My dog,” he says, beginning to frown at Merlin, his eyes turning a little hazy as if a curtain slowly falls behind them. Like he’s thinking maybe Merlin’s a bit odd. Merlin looks at his large swing tucked in the only shady spot on the porch and sees a gigantic Irish Wolfhound rocking gently to and fro, head on his paws, tongue lolling.

“Oh,” Merlin says. His eyes must widen comically because suddenly his porch and ears are assaulted with laughter. 

“I’m sorry, I’m Arthur. We just moved in next door. Caspar always goes a little funny when we move somewhere new. At least I won’t have to chase him here. There’s no chance he’ll run in this heat.”

“Yeah, um. I guess. Look,” Merlin says, “I have to go to work. I’ll see you around, okay?”

“Yeah,” Arthur says and the frown reappears. Merlin jumps off the porch and onto his bike and doesn’t look back.

By the end of the week it’s a ritual. Merlin gets up, showers, dresses and goes outside. He scratches Caspar in the hollows behind his ears and says, “Morning, bud. Too hot for you too, huh?” and then he’ll take him to Arthur’s house, who first opens the door in full PJs, then t-shirt and boxers, then boxers alone.

“Thanks,” Arthur says on Friday. His hair sticks to his forehead and he wipes at the sweat in his neck. “Jesus, does it ever get cooler here?”

Merlin snorts, is already halfway down the stairs. “Not for another three months, my friend.”

On Saturday night Merlin sits outside because inside the walls heave with sweltering heat and it makes him feel too large for his skin. The moon is full and the sky is a pincushion of stars, _and_ , he wonders, _how does it go again?_

_Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky._

He doesn’t even jump anymore when out of nowhere, a wet nose pushes against his palm. He lets Caspar lick the condensation off his empty Coke can. “Does Arthur ever lock the door?” he asks the enormous shaggy dog, who’s moved from the can to Merlin’s hand.

“He knows how to open it.”

“What the fuck?” Merlin hisses, his heart thudding loud in his chest. “You scared the crap out of me,” he says to Arthur, who leans against the post at the bottom of the steps. He’s wearing a red shirt – football, Merlin guesses, though he has no clue really – with black lines across the shoulders. It’s just the right amount of tight across Arthur’s chest and Merlin wants to know if the material feels as cool to the touch as it seems. Arthur looks casual, easy, like he’s lived here all his life and isn’t a newcomer at all. Merlin wonders what that’s like, to have life come to you easy like breathing. And then he thinks, how he’d like to leave Arthur breathless.

“I kid you not,” Arthur says, taking the steps two at a time and sinking down beside Merlin. Arthur’s sleeve is soft against his arm. “If I lock the door he just turns the latch. Too damn clever.”

They sit in silence, Merlin offering Arthur a Coke from the cooler he dragged outside. Arthur takes it, opens it with a soft click and Merlin can’t take his eyes off the way his throat works around each swallow. He wants –. He wants.

“Will you go to school here,” he asks, to remind himself Arthur is a _boy,_ “after the summer?”

“Yeah, senior year,” Arthur says, coughing a little, wiping at the droplet of coke dripping down his chin.

“Must be tough, moving at the end of high school like that,” Merlin says.

Arthur shrugs. “I’m used to it. I don’t care. By next year I’ll have a football scholarship and I’ll be done with following my dad to wherever his work takes him.”

What’s it like, Merlin wants to ask. What’s it like, traveling, following a dad. Having a dad. He doesn’t though, because the curtain is back behind Arthur’s eyes, fallen like an interlude in a play.

“What about you,” Arthur asks, “what are you doing here?”

“I’ve lived here all my life. My mum owned the pancake place at the end of the High Street. Have you seen it?” Merlin asks, not really waiting for an answer. “When she died, I couldn’t –. I stayed and, well.” He hesitates, wishes he smoked or something, so he could fill the ridiculous silence with a reason. “Anyway, if I closed up, Gus and Geoff would probably have a heart attack and die.”

“Who are Gus and Geoff?” Arthur asks and he sounds amused, so Merlin looks at him. Looks at the blue of his eyes that are lakes in the moonlight, now, instead of oceans.

“Oh, just some old guys. Gus will take his coffee black, no sugar and Geoff always drinks tea with milk.” He laughs when Arthur wrinkles his nose at that. “They’ll both have the blueberry pancakes unless it’s strawberry season. They’ve been coming to Pantasia for as long as I can remember.”

“Pantasia?” Arthur says, laughing, baring his throat to the moon and Merlin could easily believe in that sound being a sacrifice to some ancient goddess.

“We came up with it first,” Merlin says, and he wants to fit his hand around Arthur’s neck so he can feel the very life of that laughter before it dies.

“What would you recommend when I come by?” Arthur asks and he’s smiling, arms wrapped around his knees. They are faintly lined with old white scars and for a moment Merlin sees Arthur as a little boy, running amok in the streets, maybe cycling or on a skateboard and falling over, again and again, scraping his knees. Arthur’s eyes are on Merlin’s mouth as if he can see Merlin’s imaginary cigarette dangling there.

“Don’t,” Merlin says quietly, even though he doesn’t mean to.

“Why?” Arthur asks.

Because I’m more than that, Merlin doesn’t say. He just shrugs.

“Is it because you look silly?” Arthur says and Merlin wants to tell him _screw you_ , but there is something kind behind the teasing. “Do you have to wear a silly hat? Short shorts, maybe? I’d like to see that, you in short shorts.”

Merlin stills. Somewhere in the distance a coyote calls above the endless drone of the crickets and Caspar’s ears prick up. Merlin puts a soothing hand on his neck and his fingers touch Arthur’s, who evidently is of the same mind. “Would you?” he asks quietly and Arthur clears his throat, looks away. A faint blush burgeons beneath his collar.

“I should head back. Caspar, come,” he says, rising to his feet. Caspar stays where he is and Merlin smiles.

“I’ll bring him around in the morning,” he says, not moving, even though his ass is sore from sitting on the hard wood this whole time. His swing is covered in dog hair.

On Monday, Arthur is in a booth at Pantasia, his red shirt clashing horribly with the orange pleather seats. There is a boy draped all over him, an angry welt already swelling on Arthur’s neck, and Merlin knows a moment of curious and unsettling jealousy.

Until he realises Arthur would only be there, like that, for one reason.

He plonks a banocolate milkshake down on the table, spilling some over the edges, smudging their bill. “To keep your boy toy busy,” Merlin says. “Come with me.” He walks into the storage room without looking back.

“This is very boring, Merlin,” Arthur says and he leans against the shelf stacked with Mrs Butterworth. “I was expecting a uniform at least. Or maybe a hat. With feathers.”

“I own a pancake house, Arthur,” Merlin says, but he’s amused. He sees right through this. “I’m not a servant in a medieval castle. Who’s the twink?”

Arthur raises an eyebrow, as if Merlin has no right to call anyone a twink. “Just someone I found lying by the pool.”

“Classy.”

“Why, you jealous?” Arthur asks and he reaches out, hooks a finger in a loop of Merlin’s jeans, tugs. “He’s a very good kisser, you know.”

“Looks like he has some cannibalistic tendencies to me,” Merlin says but allows himself to be pulled closer. The storage room smells of caramelized pears and from now on, that will always remind him of Arthur standing right there. Gorgeous and secure in the knowledge the world wants him.

“I think,” Merlin says, leaning in a little so he can inhale the mix of chlorine and sun-pervaded skin, “you’re not really here for my sugar dusted apple pancakes, no matter how orgasmic they are.” Merlin steps into Arthur’s space, whose back makes the maple syrup rattle as they collide. There is a drift of confectionery sugar between the dip of Arthur’s collarbones and Merlin rubs it away.

“I’m not in love with you,” Arthur says a bit dumbly and Merlin gently laughs against the ugly mark on Arthur’s neck. He licks it, claims it, _his_. Arthur sighs into his hair.

“I don’t know what love is,” Merlin says, “but I know what it’s not. It’s not letting some brat you picked up at the pool suck on your neck, just to see what I’d do.”

“That’s not –” Arthur begins and Merlin presses his hips against Arthur’s while leaning back to look at him. Arthur is hard already.

“Okay, it was,” Arthur admits, knowing there’s no hiding now.

Merlin moves again, then checks himself. “But,” he says, pulling away slowly, like it hurts, and it _does_ hurt, it aches to distance himself now, “it also isn’t this.” Not here, not in the backroom of some dingy diner. “Come to my house, tonight. No, I mean –” Merlin bites his lip and shakes his head. That isn’t right either. “Arthur,” he says slowly, carefully, “would you like to come to my house this evening? So we can –, so I can show you, how good it can be. How it should be.”

Arthur nods. “I’ll,” he says, voice hoarse and he swallows hard, “I’ll be there.” He leans forward, puts his hands on Merlin’s hips, gently thumbing the sensitive dips above them, and kisses him on the cheek. Arthur flushes slightly but holds Merlin’s stare and then disappears into the bathroom. When Merlin goes back into the diner, Arthur’s boy is gone.

He showers. He eats Chinese take out. He fidgets. He laughs at himself. He changes his sheets. He showers again.

And then finally, when the end of the day has done nothing to cool its remaining hours, the moon shimmers her approval and gentles his nerves. He waits outside, because Merlin always found something calming about the quiet of the night. How does it go again?

_When the blazing sun is gone, when he nothing shines upon, then you show your little light, twinkle –_

The darkness is sweet with the scent of honeysuckle, a Mourning Dove is perched on a telephone wire and lets one solitary cry. Merlin feels Arthur is there before he sees him.

"Hi," Arthur says, leaning against the pole at the bottom of the stairs just like that first evening so long and no time at all ago.

His next inhale is hotter and more humid than the breath of the hounds of Hades, and still it's the easiest lungful of air Merlin has drawn all evening. "You came," Merlin says.

"I did." Arthur takes the steps two at a time, as he always does, his flip-flops slapping his heels. He's wearing a white short sleeved button-up speckled with drops of moisture. Sweat, Merlin thinks, or maybe Arthur is one of those people who pulls on his clothes after a shower without drying himself properly. Merlin feels a thrill that he might find out later.

"What did you tell your dad?" he asks.

"That we're playing Grand Theft Auto," Arthur shrugs, hands pushed deep into his black cargos, his grin a little sheepish and lopsided.

Merlin laughs. "Yes, because what with paying off this house, the bills and the mortgage on Pantasia, I have money left to spend on an Xbox." He stills and looks at Arthur. If he sees pity, that'll be it. He'll tell Arthur he's a nice boy, but maybe he should go home now. The only part of Arthur he'll touch then, are the hollows behind Caspar's ears. Because Merlin can carry his pathetic life around like a knight's sword that drags behind him, he doesn't want to see it reflected in someone else's eyes. But all he sees is polite boredom in Arthur's posture. His shoulders aren't rounded with the weight of the world yet, rather has it stretched out before his feet like all those whose future is made of college and life yet to come, not yet lived.

Merlin holds out his hand and Arthur's expression changes. It melds defiance with arrogance like a shield for his fear, as if Merlin’s allowed to see all of Arthur, apart from that. Merlin waits, the sounds of the night now swelling to a crescendo the darkness will hold until dawn licks the horizon. Then Arthur breathes, dipping his head a little and takes Merlin's hand. Follows him inside.

Merlin closes the bedroom door with a soft snick. Not that there is anyone who could walk in on them, not anymore, but there's something safe about a closed-off room. A haven in a storm. Arthur's hand is still in his and both their palms are damp. He lets go, and all he says while unbuttoning Arthur's shirt is, "Tell me, at any time, if you want me to stop.”

"I'm not a –” Arthur begins, cocksure, but he stops when his eyes catch Merlin's. He just nods and leans in a little. Merlin presses his forehead to Arthur's temple, because his mouth is not the first place Merlin wants to kiss. He runs his fingers through the sweat-wet hair in Arthur’s neck and squeezes a little. Arthur steps out of his flip-flops and Merlin tugs down his pants.

"Kneel at the foot of the bed," Merlin says, "and lean onto the mattress."

"What –," Arthur starts.

"I won't hurt you," Merlin breathes into Arthur's ear. "Will you trust me?" He draws the pad of his thumb over Arthur's bottom lip, making it catch, revealing the dark wet redness within. It almost crumbles Merlin's resolve not to kiss him yet.

"Are you going to fuck me?" Arthur asks and the sudden open insecurity wrenches Merlin the rest of the way into falling.

"God," Merlin says, his voice rough and trembling for the first time, "you _destroy_ me." He closes his eyes, presses close for a moment, allowing his hands to roam the expanse of Arthur’s back, feels him shake slightly beneath his fingers. He inhales the sweat in Arthur's neck, his shampoo, his longing. "Not today," he adds softly.

Then, Arthur kneels on the floor and bends over the bed. “I don’t –, what are you going to do?” he asks when Merlin sinks down behind him.

“I’m just going to kiss you, Arthur,” Merlin says, remembering the queasy buzz he had felt himself, that first time. “It’s no big deal if you don’t like something. Just tell me and I’ll stop. All right?”

“Okay,” Arthur says and he leans his forehead on his hands, pressing his face into Merlin’s sheets.

“I’m just going to spread you, don’t be scared,” Merlin says, placing his hands on the round of Arthur’s ass.

“I’m not scared,” Arthur says, over his shoulder.

“Yes, you are.” Merlin digs his fingers in the firm flesh. “Your heart is racing.” He spreads Arthur’s cheeks a little. “And you feel a little sick.” Merlin breathes warm air over his hole. “You’ve seen guys doing this, you’ve wanked off to it behind your laptop in the dark.” He cools the breath by pursing his lips. “You’ve wondered what it would feel like.”

Merlin puts his mouth over Arthur’s cleft, where he wanted to kiss him from the moment Arthur appeared on his doorstep. Arthur sucks in a deep moan and doesn’t let it out. “Breathe,” Merlin says, not moving his mouth away. Arthur clenches, pressing into the mattress, away from Merlin. “Relax, take a breath,” Merlin says, sitting back on his heels. Arthur’s fingers are white around fistfuls of Merlin’s sheets. Merlin soothes Arthur’s spine with the palm of his hand and can feel his frantic heartbeat. Merlin leans forward, using his weight to calm him.

“I want to show you how good this can be,” Merlin whispers in Arthur’s ear, his mouth wet against the shell. His dick twitches in his jeans with the way he’s lined up with Arthur naked underneath. But this isn’t about him. “How you don’t need to have your neck bitten, or your arsehole pounded like a porn star for this to be good.” Merlin shifts, caresses Arthur’s arms until their fingers meet and tangle. “I don’t want you to be ruined by some horny seventeen year old who doesn’t know what they’re doing,” he adds, more to himself that to Arthur.

“I _am_ a horny seventeen year old who doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Arthur says and Merlin laughs softly. Arthur’s grip on Merlin’s hands is no longer desperate.

“I can only help you with the last bit,” Merlin says, smiling. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Arthur says and Merlin sits back, spreads Arthur’s ass again, and licks his hole.

“Shit,” Arthur says, bucking against the bed. Merlin does it again, and again. Again. He kitten-licks, barely touching until Arthur doesn’t fight his response anymore but pushes against Merlin’s tongue, moaning softly. Merlin pulls Arthur back a little, arranging him so his cock isn’t trapped beneath his belly, but rests against the back of the mattress.

“All right?” he asks again and Arthur nods. “You have to say it.”

“Yeah, I’m, I’m good.”

“Good,” Merlin says, digging his fingers in Arthur’s cheeks and spreading them wider. “ I’m going to push my tongue inside a little now.”

“Oh god,” Arthur sighs into the sheets. He arches his feet so that the tendons of his calves stand out sharply. Merlin licks around the firm muscle one more time and then pushes his tongue inside. He has to push hard, wriggle a little to make the _oh so tight_ muscle give. Arthur whines a “Fuckfuckfuck,” arches his back, pulls the sheets loose from their tucked in corners.

Merlin palms Arthur’s balls, rubs his thumb over the ridge behind them and then tugs them a little, all the while curling his tongue in and out. In and out.

“I’m not gonna last,” Arthur says, and he sounds wrecked, hoarse.

“That’s fine,” Merlin says, “don’t hold back.” He takes hold of Arthur’s dick and pushes a finger against his hole. “Can I –?”

“Yes, please yes, just, _oh god_.” Arthur sobs when Merlin pushes the finger inside, just a little, passage eased by his tongue and spit. At the same time he sucks on Arthur’s balls and Arthur comes with a shout. Merlin pumps him through it, pulling out his finger and putting his mouth in its place so he can feel Arthur clench against his lips, until Arthur’s entire body shakes.

Only then does Merlin feel the pain of his own thrumming erection. “Don’t move,” he says, his voice as scorched as Arthur’s. “Whatever you do, don’t move.” He unzips his jeans and pulls out his dick. “God, do you have any idea –.” Merlin looks Arthur over, the ghosts of his fingerprints reddening on Arthur’s skin. He is still that hallucination that appeared on Merlin’s doorstep and Merlin thinks of all the fantasies he’s made of. “Shit, _Arthur_.”

Arthur looks over his shoulder as Merlin licks his palm and takes himself in hand. Arthur’s eyes widen and Merlin sees his dick twitch. He laughs, softly. It sounds fraught and hungry and he braces himself against Arthur’s ass while he pumps hard and fast. It doesn’t take long before Merlin silently shoots thick cords of seed all over Arthur’s back as he curls in on himself with the force of it.

Merlin catches his breath with his face pressed against Arthur’s thigh. Arthur, who lies very still. When Merlin can see through the hazy afterglow again, he pulls off his t-shirt and cleans Arthur’s back. “Come here,” he says gently, crawling up onto the bed and tugging Arthur with him. Arthur goes and lies in a pool of his own sweat. His face glistens with it, his eyes are lights in the night and Merlin has to stop himself from saying, _how I wonder what you are._

“My mouth is really dry,” Arthur says and he laughs, a small incredulous sound.

“That’s because you’ve been breathing really hard through your mouth,” Merlin says, running a finger over Arthur’s rough lips. “I’ll go get us a Coke.”

He expects Arthur to have covered up somehow, when he returns. Maybe to have crawled under the sheets or put his boxers back on. But Arthur is sitting cross-legged on Merlin’s bed, gently stroking his already half-hard cock and Merlin’s breath is left behind somewhere beyond the doorway.

Arthur flushes bright red but he looks Merlin in the eye, as if he stubbornly wants to conquer his inhibitions. It makes Merlin’s knees go weak. “I wish I had lasted longer,” Arthur says and Merlin sits down in front of him, hands him the drink.

“Don’t worry,” Merlin says, reddening a little at how shaky his voice sounds, “you’ll last longer next time.”

Arthur grins at the pink on Merlin’s cheeks, some of his confidence returning. It’s a bit ridiculous how much that turns Merlin on. “Good,” Arthur says, opening his can and drinking half of it in one go. He splutters and coughs at the bubbles burning his throat and then puts the Coke on the bedside table. Resuming his earlier caress. “Because it’s the moment before I come that I like the most, not the orgasm itself.” He looks down at his own hands and his voice drops. “I like the build up, that moment where it feels like I’ll shatter to a thousand pieces. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Merlin says softly, his own drink still unopened in his hand. “I know what you mean.”

“Can you show me? I mean it doesn’t have to be now because you already, you know, did that other thing, but –”

“No,” Merlin says, putting his unopened drink away. “No, I really do have to show you now.” Merlin takes Arthur’s hand off his cock and pulls at his waist until Arthur gets it and sits up on his knees. Merlin drops on all fours before him and opens his mouth, just allowing Arthur’s cock to slide in onto his tongue. Merlin moves back and forth, without closing his lips around the tip as he listens to the noises Arthur makes like they are a composition, an ode to sultry summer nights to come. Arthur’s breath comes in ragged stops and starts and after a while, he knots his fingers in Merlin’s hair. Merlin looks up, answers the question in Arthur’s eyes by becoming still and relaxing his mouth. Arthur is careful, torn between lust and inhibition, until his thighs shake with it. Then, suddenly, Merlin is done with being careful and he grabs Arthur’s hips and shows him how to fuck his mouth.

They lie stretched on their backs, Merlin’s sweaty sheets a crumpled heap on the floor. The moon is high in the sky, shining her light through the window above the bed.

_Twinkle, –_

“God,” Arthur groans, “tell me what winter’s like.”

“What?” Merlin says, laughing, pulled from his lazy wonder by this odd question. He can’t be bothered to move, but turns his head so he can look at Arthur.

“I’m so fucking hot, it’s ridiculous. Tell me about the winters here.”

“They’re long,” Merlin says. “Four years ago we had snow until May. And I’m not talking about a few inches. I mean heaps and heaps of the stuff.”

“That sounds lovely,” Arthur says, his hair sticking to his forehead and Merlin rolls on his side. He has to. Has to wipe that hair away and think of the moment Arthur will be gone but his pillow will still smell like him. Taste of him. He thinks of the moment Arthur had really fisted Merlin’s hair and fucked Merlin’s mouth with complete abandon, choking on words like love and fuck and more and knows he’ll never forget.

“It’s nice at first,” he says, “but it gets really fucking cold. One year, this guy threw a glass of water in the air and the drops were frozen by the time they hit the ground.”

“I saw that on TV,” Arthur says, turning his head, pushing his open mouth against Merlin’s palm. His eyes flutter closed for a moment. “That was here?”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t believe how freezing it gets.” So cold the earth creaks with it.

“Still, that sounds good. I can’t wait for winter. We’ll go do stuff. We’ll go sledding. We’ll build snowmen,” Arthur laughs, pushes himself up on one elbow. “We’ll –.” He stops. “What is it?”

“Arthur,” Merlin says softly, because he doesn’t trust his voice. He feels the mournfulness seep out of his pores like sweat. “In a few weeks you start school. They’ll love you. Fuck, they’ll _adore_ you. This town has never seen someone as enthralling as you.” Arthur stares at him, uncomprehending. Merlin’s voice drops to a lonely whisper. “Soon life will take over and I’ll be the guy you tell someone about because they moan, _fuck where did you learn how to do that._ ”

It’s how it should go, but already Merlin’s future feels a little bit hollow.

“What are you talking about,” Arthur says, rolling on top of Merlin. They both pull a face at the slide of sweat between them. “Who could possibly live up to this? Didn’t you say so yourself, I shouldn’t be ruined by some horny seventeen year old?” Arthur grins and Merlin wants to take a picture of that smile and frame it.

“If it doesn’t happen this year, then it will the next. When you move away.”

_– twinkle little star._

“You don’t want me,” Arthur says quietly. It’s not a question and Merlin closes his eyes. _How_ , he thinks, _can I explain that I crave you?_

“I do,” Merlin says simply, because anything more would just scare Arthur with its intensity. “It’s you who can’t know what he wants. You’re seventeen, Arthur. Your life is going to change so many times you’ll lose track. You’ll be too busy to think of me.”

“You obviously don’t know me very well then,” Arthur says, his breath hot on the soft of Merlin’s throat. He finds Merlin’s lips first with his fingers, then with his mouth, confident in being good at that, at least. Merlin closes his eyes, if they kiss, that’ll be it. There will be no going back, not for Merlin. He’ll fall and he’ll fall and when Arthur’s gone, the world he’ll land on won’t be the same.

It’s not like he can stop it, so he gives in, shapes the last piece of him to fit around Arthur. Merlin knows the change is so permanent, no one will ever be able to fill the space he’ll leave behind.

They kiss, exchanging flavor of sweet Coke and sweat salt and one another until they can’t tell themselves apart. Above them the moon moves in a silent trajectory, keeping an eye on the secrets they share in the dark.

“Sometimes,” Arthur whispers, the admission the only words in hours and hours of just lying and breathing in the dark, “I feel so far away from home.”

Merlin doesn’t speak, just tangles his fingers between Arthur’s and holds on.

When dawn silences the world for a short hour before it wakes, Arthur stands on Merlin’s doorstep, hooking a finger in a loop of Merlin’s jeans. He puts his hand on Merlin’s bare chest and looks down, as if the morning brings back the inhibitions he lost between Merlin’s sheets. “I meant it,” Arthur says, “you and me.” He swallows hard as if the words are too thick and _yes_ , Merlin thinks, _we always mean what we say when the words come out of our mouths_. “You and me,” Arthur begins again. He looks up and his smile makes the horizon let go of the sun, “we’ll make snow angels yet, you’ll see.”

Merlin laughs and Arthur drinks the sound with a kiss.

A woman sits on her porch, rocking back and forth to catch the morning cool. She hums a lullaby while a child dozes in her lap. Her eyes are closed and she doesn’t see Merlin cycling by on his way to Pantasia. The melody sways in his mind all day, but he doesn’t think of the words until he closes up and sees Arthur waiting for him across the street, sunlight gilding his hair.

_Stars fading but I linger on dear, still craving your kiss, longing to linger til dawn dear, just saying this._

 

~fin~  


**Author's Note:**

> [Here at LJ](http://glomp-fest.livejournal.com/28091.html#cutid1)


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